Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Yesterday was our one month anniversary! It hardly seems like a month ago we were at Dalvay.

Kevin and Jean (Heather's parents) were in Toronto this past weekend. We had a good visit on Friday. We had dinner at our place, and then went to OverJoy for dessert. They were in town to see Heather's uncle who's ill. It was short visit as they had to be back in PEI for Monday, but it was fun to have them over.

Sunday was a really nice day (sunny, 22C -- just like our wedding day) so Craig and I went golfing at Deerfield. I had a really good day of putting and chipping -- I one-putted the first 3 holes! On the front nine I shot 43 with only 13 putts. I then parred 10 and 11, and was thinking of breaking 90 again. However I then went triple-bogey triple-bogey quintuple-bogey to mess up a perfectly good round. Parred 15 though, a long 443-yard par-4. Ended up with a 96 for the day.

We actually won both our games last week! On Wednesday we won our Ultimate game 26-14. We were better than the other team, but we also played really well. Our defense was strong and we made good decisions on offense. We're also getting to know each other a bit better on the field. We could probably beat the previous week's team if we play the same way.

Hockey was a bit more dramatic. We were up 3-2 late in the game. The other team pulled their goalie, and they scored with 12 seconds left in regulation. It went into overtime (3 on 3 for five minutes, run time). Craig got the puck off the draw, went down the wing, drove for the net and scored! It was a fun game.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

It was a quiet weekend. Completed a bunch of odd jobs around the house -- filled up the yard waste bag with the end of season plant remains; cleaned up the green bin which had been raided by raccoons; cleaned up the rock borders on the front walk; touched up the limestone screening between the flagstone.

I also finally repainted the inside of the front door, unfortunately the colour doesn't match. There's three colours in the house -- two shades of brown on the walls, and an off-white on the trim. (My interior decorating theory is neutral colours on things that are hard to change like walls and floors, and colour on things that are easy to change, such as pillow coverings and placemats). The painters had left behind two paint cans, with the two browns. I took the paint cans to the paint store on Queen St E where it was purchased, and they were able to trace the order and identify the off-white. I bought a quart, and painted the door. But it looks like the painter ran out of paint, and only used our local store to finish off painting -- because the white doesn't match. So I'm just calling it a base coat.

We walked down to the Real Jerk on Saturday for lunch. There's a lot of new storefronts -- almost all of Queen St E is now gentrified. Checked out the bakery on Logan north of the Starbucks. It was around 3pm and it was full of people but empty of baked goods. Heard the baker explaining to someone else that you need to be there at 8am to get bread.

We had a couple of good bottles of wine this weekend. On Friday I tried to make the portabello agnolotti like at Alice Fazooli's. I made the pasta from scratch. It was pretty easy -- it's just flour (durum and semolina) and egg -- but I didn't roll it thin enough, and so it came out a bit chewy. Had a ripasa that was recommended by Mike at the LCBO. It went great with the caesar salad, beef carpaccio, and agnolotti.

Last night was had steak with baked potato and whipped spinach. We've been getting in the habit of buying one large new york steak (about 425g) instead of trying to finish one each. Same for the potatoes. But when I was grocery shopping it looked like I was going to have dinner by myself with the single steak and potato in my basket. We had the bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape from our mystery benefactor. (Someone anonymously gave us a wedding gift at Dalvay -- we think it was the couple that celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary at Dalvay on the Friday before our wedding). We figured a Saturday night was a special occasion enough to have the bottle. It was really good as well.

Lost both Ultimate and hockey last week, although both were competitive games. We should have won Ultimate, up 6-2, but then we got a bit complacent and lost 26-22. Went for all-you-can-eat ribs at Shoeless Joe's at King and Spadina. The ribs weren't too bad. Went rack-for-rack with Craig, I think we had two full racks each.

Thurdsay we lost at hockey 3-1, but at least we carried the play on occasion. We're getting new jerseys this season, powder blue with a capital R (for Rockets, our team name) on the front.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

We're going to be posting pics very soon from our wedding. We met with JP and Maricar this past Tuesday to look at their pictures, which look amazing. I haven't yet talked with Tanya about the ones she took.

We got back from PEI last Friday. I was planning to relax on the weekend before starting work, but squirrels had got into the soffits on the 2nd floor. (My summer project was to replace those before the wedding, but then the front walk project interrupted.) So last weekend I rebuilt the soffit and fascia, and painted because the weather was good and I wasn't sure if I'd get another chance to paint before winter.

This weekend I finally put up the gutters and downspouts. This is what started the whole project -- the old gutters were brown and in bad shape. A day earlier would have been better as it rained off-and-on most of yesterday. I've posted before and after pics on my Facebook. (I can restrict access to photos on Facebook, e.g. for pics that identify where we live). In the "after" pic you can see that the ceiling is yet to be done. I'm waiting for my electrician (Tony) to wire pot lights over the porch, and then I'll put up pine paneling.

It was a bad week for my sports. We lost both games badly. On Wednesday was my first game back in Ultimate. Our old team is back together, which is fun. However our opponents were mostly very tall, and they used their height. A lot of passes were hammers over our heads to receivers who caught the disc above what we could defend. After we went to Fionn MacCool's for half-price Keiths' and appetizers.

Thursday was hockey, and we lost 7-1. The other team was better all-around. There's 12 teams in our division, and I'm hoping they split them into two groups of 6, so that we're playing teams at our skill level. Otherwise it's not much fun. I did manage to get an assist, and I was seeing the ice better.

We have a new butcher in our neighbourhood, about a four minute walk from our place. They have duck, so I decided to surf for a duck recipe for Friday. Found this on the LCBO website. It was so-so, I liked it more than Heather. Plus I overcooked the duck (it gets tough beyond medium-rare).

I'm golfing tomorrow with Craig at BraeBen. I think it will be the last time out this season. Let's hope that my putting comes back after PEI.